Someone to Watch Over Me
by stella8h8chang
Summary: He has watched over me my entire life...he will not desert me now... From the perspective of Reinette Poisson, from The Girl in the Fireplace. Contains spoilers for seasons 2 and 3.


1. Most of the dialogue in this piece comes from the Doctor Who Season Two episode, **The Girl in the Fireplace** which was scripted by Mr S. Moffat. I own neither.

2. This piece was originally titled, **Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore**, after the song, but since the story is in English, I didn't want readers to be scared off. I took the current title from a Gershwin song from **Crazy For You. **

* * *

_Je te jetterai des sorts, pour que tu m'aimes encore.  
I'll put a spell on you, so that you'll love me again.  
(Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore, a love song by Il Divo)_

**172****7**

_**Once upon a time, there was a girl, who loved her mother very much…**_

I never loved my father; when I was barely four years old, a black market scandal broke out, and he fled to avoid arrest. But my beautiful mother, who bore me in the rue de Cléry, in the heart of Paris, intelligent and self-sufficient, and most importantly, always faithful to her family, was the goddess of my early childhood idolatry.

She told me marvellous stories as we sat together in our nightgowns, brushing each other's hair. I remember the luxurious river of pale gold that poured over her shoulders, as frightfully straight as my own. And I remember her own version of Cinderella, which was nowhere near as vicious as Grimm's, with its ugly stepsisters cutting their feet with knives to fit into shoes too small.

On one occasion, when I was nearly seven years old, because my younger brother, Abel-François, had called her to him, she left me seated by the fire, like "the little Cinder-girl". Fires always fascinated me – I was always feeling cold. So, as my bedroom door clicked behind me, I leaned a little closer.

There were _eyes_ in my fireplace. I must have fallen asleep. I pinched myself. But then I heard a _man's_ voice. It most certainly was not my guardian, Monseur Le Normant de Tournehem. And it was not coming from behind me, but in front.

He asked me my name. He said he was "The fireplace man" and he was just "checking". He had deep, dark brown eyes, short, straight brown hair, and a very wide smile. The flames danced about, framing his face and like a divine circlet.

**172****8**

_**…even when her mother died, and her father remarried a woman who already had two daughters of her own**__**…**_

It was some time in the gap between night and day, when a dull clunking noise awakened me, for children tend to sleep lightly. So I kept my eyes shut, hoping to be lulled back to sleep again, until the footsteps rose in a crescendo, making it impossible for me to contain my curiosity. As a horse neighed, I snapped open my eyes, and gasped, to see the sleek silhouette of a man against the open window in the very early morning light.

He turned to me. He was most unusually dressed. "It's me - it's the Fireplace Man!"

He strode forwards and lit the candle on my bedside table with an instrument in his hand. Of course I remembered, even if it had been nearly three months since I had first set eyes on him. It had been too long – hungrily I watched tap the mantelpiece, and examine the broken clock upon it. It frightened him.

"…no one notices the sound of one clock ticking, but two…"

He stooped, looking beneath my bed for the source of the resonant ticking sound that we both agreed was not a clock, but something the _size of a __man_. There was a sound like a spring suddenly being stretched, and his head reappeared.

"Reinette, don't look round," he whispered, before dropping to his knees and putting his wonderfully warm hands on the side of my face.

"You've been SCANNING her BRAIN!" he was angry now.

"I don't understand…it wants _me_? You want _me_?" I turned around. I had guessed whom he was addressing – a cross between a clock, and a man.

"Not yet, you are incomplete," said the thing that ticked, wearing a wig, a mask, and a lacy collar.

"What do you mean INCOMPLETE?!" he spluttered back at the clockwork monster.

I screamed, as they duelled with a pair of daggers. "It's just a nightmare," he reassured me. "Even monsters have nightmares."

I didn't want to believe it was a nightmare; I wanted the fireplace man to be real, flesh and blood. "Well then, what do monsters have nightmares about?" I asked.

"ME!" he shouted, has he rapped the fireplace, and it spun around, and then he was gone

No one notices when you pay them a surprise visit once, but twice, and you begin to wonder if someone is watching over you.

**17****30**

_**…the stepmother **__**treated the girl like a slave, and made her work night and day**__**, but the girl was good, and never complained**__**…**_

Years passed, and I saw nothing of the fireplace man. I had told my mother of him by this point, and she had laughed, and agreed with him that it had been nothing but a nightmare.

I put it down to my impertinence on the last night, when I had defied him not once, but twice.

But then another mysterious figure entered my life, albeit only for a day.

"It's a gypsy," announced our beloved servant Maurice. "She says she won't leave until she's told the fortunes of everyone in the house."

"I'm old enough!" I told Maman. "I'm nearly ten years old!"

"One day," said the gypsy, her face nearly entirely concealed by a number of purple scarves, "you will reign over the heart of a king."

"What kind of king?" I asked, excitedly, as she further examined my clammy little palm.

"He will have a fiery passion," said she. "You will find it hard to keep up with him."

But that was the last time I thought of the man in the fireplace for a long time, for Tournehem had secured the papers necessary for my father's return from exile.

**17****3****6**

_**…but the girl was good, and never complained, even when her stepsisters were invited to a royal ball**__**. A**__**s their carriage drove away, she turned to walk back into the house, but who should she see but a magnificent woman**__**, with wings of gleaming white feathers**__**…**_

I was making my way out of the house when I thought I heard five notes ring out on a harp, and since I had specifically warned both the servants and my brother not to lay a finger on it, I scurried to my room, ready to scold whoever I found there. I hadn't counted on it being the Fireplace Man. I cleared my throat.

He was wearing a pair of spectacles with thick, black rims. Taking them off, he did not recognise me, as he stuttered slightly, "I was just looking for Reinette. This is still her room, isn't it? I've been away, not sure how long…"

My mother answered the question for him. "Reinette! We're ready to go!"

"Go to the carriage, mother, I will join you there!" I replied

He looked at me in wonder, so I teased him some more. "It is customary only to have an imaginary friend in one's childhood; you are to be congratulated on your persistence!"

"Reinette," he said, swallowing, and gazing at me. It was most satisfying to have finally captivated him the same way he had captured my imagination, and more, for the past decade. "Goodness…how you've…grown…"

I decided to distract him; I gently touched his cheek, the complexion of which had not changed since the first day I met him, and I watched his eyes widen. My pulse raced as I confirmed my wildest dreams; he was _real_. And perhaps he felt the same way…

Maurice's voice called down the corridor. "Mademoiselle, your mother grows impatient!"

"A moment!" I begged. "So many questions. So little _time_."

I was fifteen now, and I was no stranger to passionate embraces, and neither was he, I discovered, as I kissed him, and pressed him up against the fireplace. But just as his hands touched my waist, I realised there were footsteps behind me. I snatched a purse from my dressing table as a means of an excuse for my tardiness, and fled from the room, without so much as a backward glance, nearly running over Maurice. The last words I heard were his.

"Who the hell are you?"

And then I realised, as my heart froze, I didn't know either.

**1741**

_**…**__**"For being so good and hardworking, for honouring them who brought you into this world, for not drowning yourself in self-pity**____**"**__** said she**__**…**_

I spent a year in a convent, hoping its hallowed walls would bring me some answers, and I once again emerged changed and repentant. Although the nuns were charming women, the solitude served to increase my sense of loss, and loneliness. I learnt the ways of an icicle, to resist all outwards blows, to show as little emotion as possible, and to bide my time until a warm heart came to set me free.

When I was home once more, mother and father listened to the chapters and plays I recited by heart, the songs I sang and played on the clavichord, and the plants which I knew by Latin names, and decided that it was high time I was married off. But my father's infamy still hung over him like a cloud, and although I was never short of dance partners who would praise my pictures and my looks, they all recoiled at the sound of my surname.

At last, Tournehem's nephew, Charles-Guillaume, took an interest in me, and we were married, just in time to preserve the integrity of our infant son, Sebastién-Marc. I would never be lonely again.

_**174****5**_

___**…"**__**I have come to reward you," said the woman. "I am your fairy godmother. By my magic, y**__**ou shall go to the ball **__**at the **__**royal **__**palace **__**tonight**____**"**__**…**_

Charles was a devoted husband, and the two of us quickly rose into prominence in society, surrounded by philosophes in our public lives, and our daughter Alexandrine-Jeanne, whom we called Fanfan, in our private ones. Sebastién had since taken his place among the angels, but life had gone on, and I had resigned myself to time's relentless march.

I was walking with my dear friend Catherine in the gardens at Versailles when I thought I saw something that did not quite fit in. A brown, close-fitting, striped jacket, slim-cut trousers…

But she distracted me, for there was news that the Duchesse de Châteauroux, the king's mistress, had fallen devastatingly ill. Of course I was most interested, having been invited to the Yew Tree Ball, to be held in honour of King Louis' son's marriage.

Still, there was no harm in invoking the green-eyed monster's assistance, to flush out any spies. "He is the King," I said, very loudly. "And I love him with all my heart. And I look forward to meeting him." It was him again, the fireplace man, I was getting surer and surer of it, as I gripped my parasol tighter, and looked over my shoulder again, praying, but as Catherine asked me if something was wrong, I was forced to admit that there was nothing there.

___**1745**_

_____**…**__**And with that, she turned a pumpkin into a coach and several rats into **__**smart **__**attendants**__**, who flung open the grand orange doors**__** for her**__**…**_

Out of the corner of my eye I watched the king leave the grand ballroom. Silently I swept after him, and when I saw that he was alone, I dared to pass through the pair of doors open wide.

I sank into a low curtsy. He grasped my chin with his thumb and forefinger, and looked into my eyes. About an hour before I had managed to engage him in some light, courtly conversation, and it was now time to push a little further.

"Your face looks as if it has been sculpted out of a cliff face by running water," he said. I smiled, and raised my eyebrows. We continued in the same manner, as he circled me, pleased with what he saw, until a servant called and he was forced to leave. I turned to the mirror over the fireplace and freshened up my appearance.

The clock on the mantel was broken. In the mirror, I saw a male figure hunched over a table behind me. "How long have you been standing there?" my heart quickened, as I recalled my childhood memories. "Show yourself!"

The figure whirled around. Before I could scream, so did the fireplace, and so did…

"Hello, Reinette, hasn't time flown?" said the voice of one I had not heard in almost nine years.

"Fireplace man!" This time he was accompanied by two companions; a dark man and a fair-haired girl. He sprayed the monster with a chilling, white substance, which made it cease to tick and move for a moment, before it began to whir softly again.

"Who are you? Identify yourself," he commanded. The creature cocked its head but remained silent. "Order it to answer me," said the fireplace man.

"But…why should it listen to me?" He was the one with the magic, the gift of bringing light.

"I don't know," he said. "It did when you were a child. Let's see if you've still got it."

I ordered it to answer all his questions and he struck up a conversation with it, using words I did not comprehend, the motley trio. But then the accursed thing turned to me.

"One more part is required," it said, as I stared into its eye-less, soul-less face. I still didn't understand; it wanted me?

"GET OUT OF HERE! GET OUT OF HERE THIS INSTANT!" I shouted, more from fear than anything.

"Reinette, no," said the fireplace man, too late, as the monster vanished. Swiftly he instructed his assistants to return to where they had come from, behind the mirror. "Reinette, you're going to have to trust me…"

Of course I trusted him; he had just saved my life. As he placed his hands on the sides of my head, and shut his eyes, I shut mine too.

He walked among my memories; together we rode in a carriage following the King's hunt, together we picked flowers, and together we painted. "If there's anything you don't want me to see," he said, "Just imagine a door and close it. I won't look."

But I did not care – I wanted him to stay with me forever – and so I imagined doors, but did not close them. Inadvertently my eyes flickered open, as I could not believe the warm touch I had finally longed for belonged to him. He asked me my age; I toyed with him some more.

"So impertinent a question so early in the conversation. How promising."

Unable to resist, I took that as an invitation to step through one of my own doors, and I soon found myself among the memories of another living soul. I flinched; the too familiar scent of solitude was here. Was it mine, or was it his? "Oh, such a lonely childhood," my voice shook, and his hands tightened on my temples.

He was known as The Doctor. He was not a man, but a Time Lord. He came from a world called Gallifrey, the land of the many suns. Noticing he was lost in my own thoughts, I probed more deeply into his. "Oh, Doctor, so lonely, so very alone," I moaned, as I saw how, as a boy, he had been faced by the greatest monstrosity of time, and he had had to run, with no one to protect him. And now it was even worse; there was not even anyone to comfort him, for his people had all perished.

Except there was one name that glowed in his most recent memories – Rose. Under his steady grip I winced again. Rose Tyler. She loved him, and he loved her, but for some reason he could not spend the rest of his life with her. Why? He knows the future, and it cannot be, he carries this terrible secret burden. How? He sees it. He lives among the stars, he has no real home, but can only tenant a place in history for a short timeBut what of our love?

"Such a lonely little boy," I spoke my thoughts aloud by accident. "Lonely then and lonelier now. How can you bear it?"

He loves something better than me, or Rose – he loves the adventure of his life. He loves his freedom – he loves to wander among the stars and time. A cage – that would kill him.

We broke apart, and he looked more vulnerable than I had ever seen him in my life. I wanted to hold him close to me, to let him know that I was there to lean on. Just for one moment, just for one dance. Could one dance do any harm?

"There comes a time, time lord, when every lonely little boy must learn how to dance." I took him by the hand, still spellbound, and I led him from the room, to where the music from the grand ballroom could just be overheard.

___**1752**_

_____**…**__**T**__**he moment she **__**arrived **__**at the palace in **__**her **__**enchanted **__**golden **__**dress**__**, and her hair clasp like a butterfly, and her **__**tiny glass slippers**__**, she captur**__**ed the attention of the Prince**__**…**_

I was happy, for a while. Within a month I had begun to visit the palace of Versailles regularly, becoming the official mistress of the King. By the time summer had come, he had bought me the estate of Pompadour and raised me to the title of Marquise. And I had left Charles behind me.

But I miscarried twice, in 1746 and 1749, and that encouraged me to take to longingly watching the night sky, where my Doctor had come from. A shadow passed over the shaft of light that spilled into my through the doorway, and the sound of footsteps told me someone was approaching. But the intact clock told me I was safe, and its shiny face told me that the fair companion – her name was Rose – was behind me.

"Please, don't scream."

She warned me that they, the clockwork creatures, would be here in five years. She started to explain, but I knew.

"There is a vessel in your world, where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age, while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path?"

Five years, I thought. Would the Doctor be here in five years?

"He promises," said Rose. Close-up I could see she could barely have been out of her teens. "He'll be there when you need him."

"The monsters and the doctor," I mused. "You cannot have one without the other."

"You weren't supposed to have either," said the Rose girl defensively. "These creatures are messing with history…none of this was ever supposed to happen to you."

"Supposed?" Such impertinence at her age; what did she know, what did the Doctor see in her? "It happened, child, and I would not have it any other way. One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel."

From behind a tapestry appeared the dark man again. "Rose? Rose? Rose!" The two of them were there; the Doctor could not be far off…

"No, you can't go in there, the Doctor will go mad," said Rose, though I ignored her, and entered his world. There were more unfamiliar whirring noises, a few high-pitched notes, but worst of all, screams.

"Those screams…is that my future?" I was immediately sorry I had been so hard on Rose; she genuinely meant it as she apologised for what was yet to come. I saw it in her eyes; the cosy affection that he must cherish about her. Here in France we have been taught to master and manipulate, but her face radiated unconditional love. "You and I both know, don't we, Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters."

___**175****7**_

_____**…**____**He danced with her until midnight, which was the moment her godmother had warned her that the spell would break**__**. S**__**he **__**let go of his hand, and she **__**fled. **__**Her shoe slipped off her foot just outside the great ballroom, and she kept on running, for in her heart of hearts, she wanted her charming prince to have something to remember her by…**_

As the sun set, it became apparent that something was grievously wrong. I peered out the window to see our entire palace surrounded by an army of clockwork creatures, but not wanting to alarm anyone, and having faith in the Doctor, I said nothing. It would be my own cross to bear, no one else's. In all my life I never heard anything like it, clockwork monsters stalking a person.

Until the creatures swiftly moved inside, and chased a party of noblemen ran down the hall. Louis came to me, stating the obvious, as usual. "We are under attack! There are creatures…I don't even think they're human. We can't stop them."

I looked deep into the fireplace, having ascertained that the clock on the mantel was broken. But Louis tugged my hand, wanting me to flee.

"No," I told him. "There is a man coming to Versailles. He has watched over me my whole life and he will not desert me tonight…the only man," I saw his jealousy rising, "Save you, I have ever loved." I urged him to leave, to seek out his queen and spirit her to safety, while I continued entreating the man on the other side of the fireplace. "Are you there? Can you hear me? I need you now, you promised. The clock on the mantel is broken. It is time. Doctor! Doctor!"

The sound of stab wounds and screams punctured the room. Louis roughly grasped my wrist, convinced that no one would come to help us, but it was too late; a fearsome trio had entered the room.

"You are complete. You will come."

Louis bravely drew his sword and brandished it at them, but one of the fiends shot a bolt of lightning at him, which melted the metal in midair. In a flash they had him by the arms, a blade against his throat. I could let no one else suffer because of my cowardice.

"No! Reinette! You mustn't!"

How could I explain to him the way the Doctor had twice saved my life? Given his prior reaction, how could I explain to him the reason for my coldness, the way we had drifted apart since that one passionate night with the Doctor that still haunted me, the faith in my angel who had descended upon me fewer times than I could count on one hand? Louis could not understand the way the words of the clockwork monsters could mean nothing to me, because the words of the Doctor – his promise – meant so much.

The monsters had cornered a group of howling courtiers.

"CALM DOWN!" I said, as loudly, and as confidently as I could muster. "Such a commotion. Such distressing noise. Kindly remember that this is Versailles. This is the Royal Court. And we are French."

Keep them talking, I thought. Keep them talking. That was what the Rose child had said, what the Doctor had said.

They had me on my knees. But they did not have my tongue.

"If my nightmare can return to plague me, then rest assured, so will yours…"

There was the sound of a horse whinnying, as a large mirror on the wall shattered, to reveal the Doctor on the back of a radiant steed. He winked at me.

"Madam de Pompadour, you look younger every day."

Louis turned to the Doctor. "What the hell is going on?!" he asked, in a most undignified manner. I felt I owed him an explanation.

"This is my lover, the King of France."

"Yes? Well I'm the Lord of Time," he said condescendingly. He turned to one of the creatures and spoke in a language I could not understand. At one point, he looked sadly up at where the mirror had been, where he had come from. He could not return there. He's trapped. He's caged here, by the brick and mortar now between my world and his

Louis looked appeased by my exclusion. At last, the ticking ceased, and the clockwork creatures crumpled to the floor. My Doctor took my hand apologetically, and asked if I was all right. I nodded and he pulled me to my feet. "What's happened to them?" I gasped.

"They've stopped. They have no purpose now." He let go of my hand.

But I had a purpose now. I ran to Louis' side. Louis rang the bell, and many manservants entered to clear away the debris. "THIS is Versailles. This is the Royal Court. And we are French!" He clapped his hands, and the orchestra started up again. A servant came up to us bearing two glasses of wine, and we each took one. He leant down to whisper in my ear. "To peace, and hope, and love," he said, raising and draining his glass, as I sipped mine. "You must be exhausted, my dear, after such a commotion" he said, as I stroked his hair.

I nodded assent. "I will see you in my chamber later." I kissed him on the cheek, and turned on my heel.

The Doctor was waiting for me in the room where he had last burst through the mirror all those years ago. He had acquired a glass of wine in the two minutes it had taken for me to find him. He stood at the window, gazing at the stars, and swirling the dark red liquid in his glass goblet.

"You know all their names, don't you? I saw that in your mind. The name of every star."

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Love. Angel. Doctor. Fireplace Man.

"Yet, still you came," I said.

"I did, didn't I?" he said, smiling wistfully. "Catch me doing that again."

I knew we would not choose that path this time; I had to remain faithful to my King. "There were many doors between my world and yours. Can you not use one of the others?"

He explained that the shock of the breaking mirror would have severed all links to his world. "I'll pay for any damage," he said. And then he realised, he had no idea even how to make money. All the more, he did not belong in my world. The lips of our glasses met for the last time.

"It's a pity…I think I would've enjoyed the slow path," I said, hopefully.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," he said, not understanding my machinations.

"Oh, aren't you?" I set down my wine glass. "Take my hand," I instructed, leading him into my bedroom for a second time. We stopped in front of the fireplace, which I had had moved from my childhood bedroom in Paris in 1745, in the hope that a door that had opened once might open once more.

He rushed to it and started tapping it excitedly. He doesn't belong here, he doesn't belong to you, he is not for you to keep as your prisoner, I half-heartedly convinced myself.

But then he found what he had been looking for, he thumped his hand on the fireplace, stood on it, his face aglow and beaming, "Wish me luck!"

The fireplace began to turn around, like the entrance to a secret passageway. "NO!" I had not even had a chance to kiss him goodbye, just one last time…

The way his face faded told me that he too was wondering if we had made the right choice. I heard a voice from the other side of the fireplace, and crouched down to meet it, just as I had thirty years ago.

"Madame de Pompadour! Still want to see those stars?"

"More than ever," I said. If we could not find togetherness in my world, perhaps we could find it in his, I had, after all, nothing binding me to mine. My mother was dead, my two daughters would be barren, and the king…he was the King, and he would soon find another lover.

"Give me two minutes," said the Doctor. "Pack a bag!"

"Am I going somewhere?" I gasped in disbelief.

"Go to the window. Pick a star. Any star."

I dashed to the window.

_____**1764**_

_______**…**__**until at last, **__**the Prince **__**arrived at her doorstep. He had travelled around the entire city, trying to find the mysterious girl whom he had danced with at the ball, **__**trying to fit the slipper on every maiden he met. When he discovered she was the owner, he swept her onto his horse, and they rode**__** away**__** into the **__**starry night**__**, to live happily ever after…**_

The weariness was painful. I could barely bring myself to hold the pen as I scrawled a farewell note. I remembered the days I had spent waiting for him next to burst into my life and reminded myself that I must be patient.

The path has never seemed more slow…I fear I am nearing its end…But I shall not listen to reasonI have seen the world inside your head, and know that all things are possible…God speed, my lonely angel.

I shut my eyes, and dreamt I had strength again, strength enough to rise from my bed and walk to the fireplace. The flames parted for me, as I passed through them, and into the room with the mirror above the fireplace. I turned around and saw the flames solidifying onto my back, becoming a pair of gold and scarlet wings. The night sky stretched out its arms to welcome me home, as I ran through the wide open doors and spread my wings.

* * *

**_____Obligatory author notes:_**

_____Firstly, if you can pick the Charlotte Bronte reference up, I'll be lovin' you forever. Happy Summer Solstice!_

_____Secondly, I don't know if I've included too much of the original episode's dialogue. I really loved it – it was scripted so cleverly – but it might have detracted from the original flavour of the piece. I don't know. Happy Carols in the Domain!_

_____Thirdly and lastly, this was meant to be a short fic, no more than 3K words, and it has turned into a five-thousand thing that competes with the droids in monstrosity contests. I apologise._


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